ject at all; it is quite a legitimate
division of labour. I shall get into it in time: but I am so stupid
about coming into a room alone, and instead of looking about to see what
people I really do know, I just stiffen into a sort of shell. I should
never have known you if you had not come up to me, John."

"You see I was looking out for you, and you were not looking out for me,
that makes all the difference."

"You were looking out for us!"

"Ever since the season began I have been looking out for you,
everywhere," said John, with a rather fierce emphasis on the pronoun,
which, however, as everybody knows, is plural, and means two as much as
one, though it was the reverse of this that John Tatham meant to show.

"Ah!" said Elinor. "But then I am afraid our set is different, John.
There will always be some places--like this, for instance--where I hope
we shall meet; but our set perhaps is a little frivolous, and your set a
little--serious, don't you see? You are professional and political, and
all that; and Phil is--well, I don't know exactly what Phil is--more
fashionable and frivolous, as I said. A race-going, ball-going, always
in motion set."

"Most people," said John, "go more or less to races and balls."

"More or less, that makes the whole difference. We go to them all. Now
you see the distinction, John. You go to Ascot perhaps on the cup day;
we go all the days and all the other days, at the other places."

"How knowing you have become!"

"Haven't I?" she said, with a smile that was half a sigh.

"But I shouldn't have thought that would have suited you, Elinor."

"Oh, yes, it does," she said, and then she eyed him with something of
the defiance that had been in her look when she was standing alone. She
did not avoid his look as a less brave woman might have done. "I like
the fun of it," she said.

And then there was a pause, for he did not know what to reply.

"We have been through all the rooms," she said at last, "and we have not
seen a ghost of Phil. He cannot be coming now. What o'clock is it? Oh,
just the time he will be due at---- I'm sure he can't come now. Do you
think you could get my carriage for me? It's only a brougham that we
hire," she said, with a smile, "but the man is such a nice, kind man. If
he had been an old family coachman he couldn't take more care of me."

"That looks as if he had to take care of you often, Elinor."

"Well," she said, looking him full in the face again, "yo